“Diversity” Trumps “Liberty,” “Freedom,” “Equality” and “Democracy” on Campus Gail Heriot

Here’s an interesting study.  The National Association of Scholars looked at web sites for the top 100 universities to see how often the words “diversity,” “freedom,” “liberty,” “equality” and “democracy” appeared (in relative terms).  They then compared those sites to web sites of other institutional opinion leaders–the mainstream print media, the mainstream tv media, blogs, business associations, trade unions, religious denominations a d politca party committees.  The result?  Only on campus does diversity consistently trump the more traditional values of “liberty,” “freedom,” “equality,” and “democracy.” 

The difference is striking.  While the Top 100 universities refer to “diversity” 1.28 times more often than “freedom.” 4.93 times more often than “liberty,” 3.68 times more often than “equality,” and 3.10 times more often than “democracy,” the corresponding ratios for blogs are 0.15, 0.49, 1.58 and 0.46 respectively. 

For individual universities, the ratios were even larger.  The University of Connecticut, for example, used the word “diversity” 2.32 times more often than “freedom,” 63.82 times more often than “liberty,” 49.00 more often than “equality,” and 42.74 times more often than “democracy.”

The mainstream media were more like blogs than like universities.  The print media’s ratios were 0.29, 0.70, 3.00, and 0.42 respectively.  The television media’s ratios were 0.16, 0.63, 1.36 and 0.21.